To Make a Great First Impression Do This 1 Small Thing Successful Speed Daters Do

From the Harvard Research and Inc.:

Making a great first impression is so much better than having to overcome a bad first impression. But it’s easier said than done. Big first impressions come from small talk done well–something most of us struggle with. We end up defaulting to highly generic and ineffective tropes like “What do you do?”, “Nice weather we’re having, no?”, “Traffic is ridiculous, huh?”, or “How ’bout them Dallas Cowboys?!”

There’s a better way, one informed by an odd duo: Harvard research and speed-daters (and confirmed by my own experience).

A 2017 study by a team of Harvard psychology researchers says we’re screwing up small talk. Too many think quickly focusing the conversation on themselves and sharing impressive self-stories is how it’s done. But it rarely works. As the researchers put it: “Redirecting the topic of conversation to oneself, bragging, boasting, or dominating the conversation tends to decrease liking.”

So what to do instead? Ask more questions.

The researchers said that surprisingly, people do not think that more question-asking leads to them being liked more–but it does.

Here’s the study’s conclusion in the words of lead researcher Francesca Gino and her team.